- Dream-to-video reconstruction from fMRI was dissected: reconstruction quality is capped by voxel resolution and the size of the paired-image training set, not by the original picture resolution, and a DIY setup is impossible today because even refurbished MRI hardware far exceeds a $1 k budget.  
- NanoEngineer-1’s aging GUI is being considered for replacement with a programmable chemistry DSL, but specifying exact atomic placements (e.g., centering a Ge dimer on diamond) without visual picking remains an open design challenge; ChemPy and Open Babel were floated as cleaner internal formats than the legacy MMP file.  
- Two low-cost DNA-synthesis initiatives were highlighted: the KiloBaser microfluidic, magnetic-bead platform from Open Biolab Graz and a $500 eBay ABI 391 DNA/RNA synthesizer now in nmz787_i’s lab; kanzure posted the full 1990 ABI manual plus a BOM covering phosphoramidites, tetrazole, argon, and waste-disposal protocols.  
- CLEAR tissue-clearing and wide-field temporal-focusing microscopy of C. elegans brains were shared as recent open advances in whole-brain imaging, while magnetotactic bacteria were proposed as a ready source of 42 nm monodisperse Fe₃O₄ nanocrystals for MRI, ferrofluids, and photonic crystals.  
- The Azolla crowdfunding campaign was criticized for choosing an expensive, error-prone 300-cycle Illumina run instead of the cheaper, higher-quality 200-cycle paired-end option, illustrating how public bio-crowdfunding can misallocate sequencing resources.  
- A side debate on longevity strategy contrasted Aubrey de Grey’s public marketing with private research, questioned the ethics of whole-body versus brain-only life-extension, and dismissed Google/Calico’s “California Life Company” as already well-covered by mainstream media.  
- TLC vs. gel electrophoresis for proteins was argued: seba- touted TLC’s speed and convenience, while ParahSailin countered that solvent scouting, plate prep, and poor diffusion for large molecules make it cumbersome.  
- pdfparanoia development continued with a call for sample PDFs containing image-based watermarks to test automated removal of publisher-specific identifying marks and advertisements.